How to scrap or sell an asset

What is it for?

When an asset leaves the company, it must also leave the books: the cost, the accumulated depreciation and whatever was left to depreciate. The Dispose of / Scrap button makes that journal entry, calculates the accounting and the tax gain or loss and, for a sale, prepares the invoice for the buyer. The asset becomes Disposed of (or Scrapped) with no months left to depreciate.

When to use it?

• You sold the asset (Sale).
• The asset is no longer useful and has no sale value: broken beyond repair, obsolete, destroyed (Scrapping (no proceeds)).
• The asset was lost in a theft, fire or accident (Casualty), with or without insurance compensation.
• Do not use Dispose of / Scrap for an asset that is only out of use for a while: in that case change its state to Stopped.

Where to find it?

Accounting › Record › Fixed assets (in the Partners and assets group). Open the asset: the Dispose of / Scrap button is at the top of the form while the asset is In use or Stopped.

Before you start

• Your profile is Accountant. With it you can do everything, including issuing the sales invoice.
• You have the actual exit date and, for a sale, the amount without VAT and the buyer (among the customers, with the tax number (NIF)).
• The example continues the asset from the articles How to register a fixed asset and How to process the month's depreciation: AF/00011 “Computador da contabilidade”, €1,200.00, with the instalments from July to September 2026 already processed (€99.99). It is sold on 29/10/2026 for €900.00 + VAT.
• Odoo itself processes the missing instalments up to the month before the exit: the exit month has no instalment. Pending validation by a certified accountant: instalment for the disposal period (Regulatory Decree (Decreto Regulamentar) no. 25/2009, art. 7).
• If the company deducted the VAT on the asset's purchase, check that the amount is on the form: Tax board tab, VAT Deducted on Acquisition field (and Deduction Percentage, if the deduction was partial). Odoo does not fetch it from the supplier invoice; with €0.00 the window does not show the VAT regularisation of step 5. On AF/00011 in the example it is €0.00.
• Check that there are no instalments processed after the exit date (Depreciation plan tab). If there are, talk to the certified accountant first: Odoo currently accepts that date, and the accounting and tax net book values no longer match (see “Common problems”).

How to use it

1. On the asset form, click Dispose of / Scrap. The Dispose of / Scrap window opens with the Asset and today's Date.

2. In Operation, choose Sale, Scrapping (no proceeds) or Casualty. In the example, Sale.

3. In Date, check the exit date (29/10/2026). Use the date on which the asset actually left: Odoo currently accepts a future date without warning (in the test, 01/03/2027) and uses it to calculate the instalments, the gain or loss and the VAT regularisation. Do not record an exit that has not happened yet.

4. For a sale, type the Disposal Proceeds without VAT (900,00) and choose the Buyer (Construções Marão, Lda). Sale Taxes appears: type 23 and choose 23%. The list also shows “Retenção IRS 23% — trabalho independente…”, which is not VAT and does not apply here. With a buyer, Odoo prepares the sales invoice; the Proceeds Account field disappears.

   • For a scrapping or a casualty, type the Reason (for example Avariado sem reparação), which is mandatory.
   • For a casualty, also fill in Compensation Received, Insurer, Policy Number and Claim Number, if you already have them.

5. If the asset has VAT Deducted on Acquisition, the window immediately shows the VAT Regularisation block, with the years left in the regularisation period and the amount:

   • VAT to Pay to the State, for a scrapping, a casualty or a sale without VAT (no Sale Taxes, or with the Proceeds Account). Tested with the “Impressora da receção” (AF/00017, €800.00, €184.00 of VAT deducted, in use since 02/03/2026), scrapped on 29/10/2026: “CIVA art. 24.º: faltam 4 de 5 anos do período de regularização. IVA a entregar: 147.2; IVA a deduzir: 0.0.” and VAT to Pay to the State €147.20 (€184.00 × 4 ÷ 5).
   • VAT to Deduct, for a sale with 23% of an asset with a Deduction Percentage below 100 (tested with 50%: €110.40 to deduct).
   • Nothing, for a sale with 23% of an asset deducted at 100%: the block disappears.

   For Odoo to prepare the journal entry, tick Create the Draft Entry of the Regularisation and choose the Regularisation Counterpart: an expense account for VAT to pay, an income account for VAT to deduct, as indicated by the certified accountant (in the test, 6812 Impostos indiretos). Without the box ticked, Confirm creates no journal entry and gives no warning: the regularisation is left undone. Pending validation by a certified accountant: VAT regularisation of fixed assets (VAT Code (CIVA), art. 24 and 25), the counterpart account and the periodic VAT return field that receives it.

6. Click Calculate. Nothing is posted: the window shows the RESULT, ACCOUNTING and TAX. In the example: Accounting Net Book Value €1,100.01, Accounting Gain / (Loss) -€200.01, Coefficient 1.00, Tax Net Book Value €1,100.01 and Tax Gain / (Loss) -€200.01.

7. Check the amounts. If you change any field, click Calculate again. Then click Confirm.

8. For a sale, issue the invoice left in draft: in Accounting › Record › Customer invoices (Sales and collections group), open the buyer's draft (€1,107.00 in the example). The draft already has the line with the product “[SERV] Serviço genérico”, the description “Alienação” followed by the asset's name, the asset's Account (435 Equipamento administrativo), the sale Price and the VAT: check it and follow How to issue a certified invoice. In the example, it became FT D26/31.

Expected result

• The asset becomes Disposed of (or Scrapped), with the Exit Date filled in. The form's history records “Accounting board recalculated: 0 planned period(s), 3 processed kept.”, and in the What happened tab the EVENTS list has the disposal line with the journal entry.

• Sale (example, checked in the general ledger), two journal entries dated 29/10/2026:

  • the disposal entry, MISC/2026/00124: 4385 (accumulated depreciation of administrative equipment) debit €99.99, 6871 Alienações debit €200.01 (the loss) and 435 Equipamento administrativo credit €300.00;
  • the invoice FT D26/31: 2111 Clientes gerais debit €1,107.00, 435 Equipamento administrativo credit €900.00 and 2433 IVA - Liquidado credit €207.00.

  Account 435 is cleared (€300.00 + €900.00 = €1,200.00).

• Scrapping (tested on a separate asset, with the same cost and the same plan): 4385 debit €99.99, 6871 Alienações debit €1,100.01 and 435 credit €1,200.00. The July to September instalments that had not been processed were posted at the same time, one per month, with the dates of those months.

• VAT regularisation (scrapping of AF/00017, checked in the general ledger): besides the scrapping (MISC/2026/00140: 4385 debit €93.31, 6871 Alienações debit €706.69 and 435 credit €800.00), there is a draft journal entry dated 29/10/2026, “Regularização de IVA (CIVA art. 24.º) - Impressora da receção”: 6812 Impostos indiretos debit €147.20 and 2434 IVA - Regularizações credit €147.20. You open it from the entries counter at the top of the form (9 movimentos in the example), and the history records “VAT regularisation proposed (CIVA art. 24.º): 147.2 to pay to the State, 4 of 5 years left.”. Post it in Accounting › Record › Journal entries after the certified accountant confirms the account and the period. Pending on-screen validation: the draft was not posted, so as not to change the October 2026 VAT computation that other articles use.

• A gain is credited to the category's gains account (787). For a casualty, the loss and the compensation go to the category's casualty accounts (6872 and 7872), in separate journal entries. Pending on-screen validation: the casualty was not confirmed, so as not to remove one more asset from the demonstration path; the accounts come from the category's configuration.

Important notes

• Tax result and coefficient. The tax result uses the cost corrected by the currency devaluation Coefficient (1.00 for assets less than two years old, as in the example) and the instalments accepted for tax purposes. The tax gain or loss goes to the capital gains map and to the Corporate Income Tax (IRC) return: see How to generate the asset tax maps. Pending validation by a certified accountant: tax capital gains and losses and coefficients (Corporate Income Tax Code (CIRC), art. 46 and 47).
• VAT on the sale and on the scrapping. The sale of a fixed asset normally carries VAT at the asset's rate; choose it in Sale Taxes. The Proceeds Account (without a buyer) posts the amount without an invoice and without VAT: use it only when the certified accountant says so, and it counts as a sale without VAT for the regularisation in step 5. The regularisation only appears within the 5-year period (20 for real estate) counted from the year the asset came into use. Pending validation by a certified accountant: VAT on the sale of fixed assets, including those that gave no right to deduction (VAT Code (CIVA), art. 9, no. 32).
• Scrapping account. Scrapping currently posts the loss to 6871 Alienações, the same account as a sale. If the company keeps scrappings in a separate account, check with the certified accountant before confirming. Pending validation by a certified accountant: scrapping account (SNC, 6873).
• It cannot be undone with a button. After Confirm, the window cannot go back; correcting a disposal means reversing the journal entries, to be decided with the certified accountant.

Common problems

“A disposal with proceeds needs the account that receives them…”

• Symptom: when you click Calculate, “Invalid Operation” appears with “A disposal with proceeds needs the account that receives them (bank or receivable) or the buyer for the sale invoice. Choose one and try again.”
• Cause: you typed the Disposal Proceeds without a Buyer or a Proceeds Account.
• What to do: close the message with Close, choose the buyer and the VAT rate and click Calculate again.

“Some required fields are empty” on a scrapping

• Symptom: when you click Calculate on a scrapping or a casualty, “Some required fields are empty. Fill in the fields marked in red to be able to save.” appears.
• Cause: the Reason is empty.
• What to do: type why the asset is leaving the books and click Calculate again.

The accounting and tax net book values differ for no reason

• Symptom: for an asset with no tax differences, the Accounting Net Book Value and the Tax Net Book Value from Calculate do not match. In the test, a scrapping dated 15/09/2026 of a software asset with the September instalment already processed gave €583.33 and €600.00.
• Cause: the Date is earlier than an instalment already processed. Odoo accepts it.
• What to do: do not confirm. Use the actual exit date; if the extra instalments really are wrong, talk to the certified accountant about reversing them before the disposal.

“The disposal proceeds cannot be negative.”

• Symptom: when you click Calculate, “Invalid Operation” appears with this sentence.
• What to do: type the amount without a sign. A sale at a loss has the amount the buyer pays; Odoo calculates the loss.

“The exit date of … is before its entry into operation …”

• Symptom: “Validation Error” with, for example, “The exit date of "Portátil para a contabilidade" (01/01/2026) is before its entry into operation (01/07/2026). An asset cannot leave before it starts; correct the dates.”
• What to do: correct the exit Date. If it is the start-of-use date on the form that is wrong, talk to the certified accountant before changing it, because it changes the instalments already processed.

The VAT regularisation does not appear

• Cause: the form's VAT Deducted on Acquisition is €0.00, the regularisation period has ended, or the sale has 23% and the purchase VAT was deducted at 100%.
• What to do: in the first case, close the window with Cancel, type the deducted VAT in the Tax board tab and open the window again. If the asset was already scrapped without the regularisation, the journal entry is made by hand, with the certified accountant.